


Man's Best Friend

by LinguistLove_24



Category: Original Work
Genre: Animal Death, Bonding, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9579278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguistLove_24/pseuds/LinguistLove_24
Summary: "It was funny what a dog's love was capable of evoking. It made dim lives brighter, dull moments funnier, boring times became adventurous. Reticent, unemotional men were opened up, often reduced to piles of sappy mush – a fact ill disguised from sons and wives."-Original work very loosely inspired by the show Offspring - the episode in season three where Mick loses his dog, Rocket.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This original work of fiction is the property of its author, should not be used or replicated without prior consent and is intended to bear no resemblance to actual persons or circumstances.

**Man's Best Friend**

 

Troy McCallum knelt down next to the furry mass he'd finally located in the bushes on his ample acreage. Though he'd never considered himself or been considered by others cut from the emotional cloth, he was ever aware of the heat of silent tears streaming slowly down his face. The thought of wiping them away didn't even strike him. All he could manage was the slow, methodical stroking of almost plush black-brown fur. Something in him was aware that this was the end for Apollo, even if he didn't want it to be so.

 

 

As if it were keenly aware of the sobriety of the moment and Troy's necessity to speak to the person whose name showed itself on the screen upon extraction, his cell rang shrilly from the confines of his work pants' pocket.

 

 

“Hey Dad,” the voice, deeper and gruffer than it should have been for its twenty years took a breath as if to launch into an unasked for explanation as to why it had rung but was cut off.

 

 

“I think Apollo's dying, son,” he choked out, met by long seconds of complete and total silence.

 

 

“No he isn't,” was the eventual offered response. “He can't be.”

 

 

“I don't want to believe it either.” Troy's voice was thick, eyes squeezed shut as the last of fat, salty droplets escaped. He told himself if he didn't allow his eyes to take it in, it wasn't real. “But it's been fifteen years.”

 

 

“So?” Elijah's voice was almost defiant, challenging the validity of his father's words, his very authority, as he'd done so often as a child. “Lots of dogs live longer than that. I'll bet the vet could save him, you should take him.”

 

 

“Your Mama's got the truck,” he said flatly, as if resigning himself to inevitability.

 

 

“I'm coming,” Elijah said hurriedly without hesitation. “I'll take you.” The call was disengaged before the elder could contest him.

 

///

 

_“A puppy, a puppy, a puppy!!!! Dad's gotten us a puppy!” Elijah ran up to the door, clutching tightly to his father's legs and looking up adoringly when he'd finally identified the mound of fluff peeking bleary eyed from the blanket in his arms._

 

 

_“He has, has he?” Edith McCallum stood hands to hips, extending her husband what was supposed to be an admonishing glare, but he knew she wouldn't stay mad at him. Anger hadn't reached to full height, such was evident by sparkling orbs she couldn't muster enough displeasure to disguise._

 

 

_“Yes!”_

 

 

_“I thought we'd agreed on no house pets, Troy?” Edith's tone was questioning, brow slightly askew, laughter lacing the intonation contradictory to what she wanted to convey. They'd enough animals roaming the acreage, housed within the confines of the barn, they needn't keep one in house too._

 

 

_“Well, we did, darling, but John and Wendy's dog birthed another litter and this runt was the last one. Nobody seemed to take to him and his pint sized form, but he ran up to me straight away. I took pity on him and just had to bring him home. We've the room, he'll be all right.”_

 

 

_“What kind of dog is he?” she asked with a resounding sigh, signifying to both men in her life that they were undoubtedly permitted to keep him._

 

 

_“A mutt, I suppose,” Troy mused. “Definitely not a pure bred of any sort. They never said. He's rather scraggly looking.”_

 

 

_“Does he have a name?” Elijah's five year old voice was beyond excitement._

 

 

_“Not yet,” his father smiled, setting the minuscule creature gently to the floor. He skidded like Bambi as he tried to make use of limbs too big for his body, more fluff than frame._

 

 

_“You can name him, then,” Edith encouraged gently. “What d'you reckon he looks like?”_

 

 

_The canine stood frozen to his spot, shaking gently and eyeing his new masters with apprehension and suspicion. Tentative steps were taken toward the youngest of them, Elijah crouched alongside and peering thoughtfully at him._

 

 

_“Apollo,” he said affirmatively after letting several long, slow beats tick past._

 

 

_“Why Apollo, son?” his father questioned with dancing eyes, genuinely wondering from where in his young mind the idea had risen._

 

 

_“I don't know,” he mused. “He just looks like one.”_

 

 

_“Fair enough,” Troy chuckled. “I reckon he'll follow you everywhere once he's used to you. The two of you will be the best of friends.”_

 

 

_///_

 

“Did he eat something poisonous?” Elijah stood tearfully over his furry companion as he lay nearly lifeless atop the veterinarian's cold metal table. Like hospitals, he found vet clinics to be incredibly cold and impersonal even if the professionals working within their walls proved not to be.

 

 

“No,” Dr. Jessica Klein affirmed, voice barely above a whisper. “Not that we can see. This is just one of those cases of age catching up to the poor boy.”

 

 

“Do we put him to sleep, then?” Troy's question was choked, almost as if he had to force it out of his throat. As a grown man, an old man, he hated that he was being reduced to this all because of a dog he was never supposed to have gotten all those years ago.

 

 

“That seems the best course of action, yes.” Though she wasn't supposed to and was definitely more of an animal person than a people person, she sometimes found herself attached to and sympathising with clientele. This proved one of those instances, and she reached to give both Troy and Elijah McCallum comforting squeezes to the hand.

 

 

“Can we stay?” Elijah asked.

 

 

“Absolutely.”

 

 

Both parties stood next to him, a master on either side, heads bent so as not to connect with the vet as she collected the drugs and made work of administering them by way of intravenous injection. All they could focus on was his suffering form, their comforting strokes to his fur so as to try to ease the pain he was feeling. Perhaps they were feeling more than he.

 

 

“It's all right, boy. You're just gonna go to sleep.” Though he was an adult, in those seconds scrunched over the creature who'd proven himself his first and most loyal best friend, he'd reverted to his five year old self. Nothing made you feel quite so old or so young as losing something or someone you'd begun to believe could never die.

 

 

Fleetingly, he made eye contact with his father and old, weathered hand reached to connect with young supple one. He'd never been emotional or sentimental, and growing up Elijah had sought in Apollo all the things his father had failed to give. In that moment, the gesture held a significance he couldn't describe, his appreciation for it enormous.

 

 

“You'll follow him someday, son,” he rasped with a watery half smile, referencing as he had so many times in years past the dog's affinity for trailing mere steps behind his youngest master. They'd been inseparable until Elijah had left to embark on his own life, and even then return visits home – some just to visit the dog – were frequent.

 

 

It was funny what a dog's love was capable of evoking. It made dim lives brighter, dull moments funnier, boring times became adventurous. Reticent, unemotional men were opened up, often reduced to piles of sappy mush – a fact ill disguised from sons and wives.

 

 

And on the days when time finally came knocking to declare theirs was spent, rainbow bridge awaiting them to cross, grown men – and women too – were reduced to seemingly unending amounts of large, unforgiving tears as they thought about just how much they'd been affected by man's best friend.

 


End file.
